Time for a new CPU?

[Rogue 2]

Have:
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz x 2). S939 nf4 mobo. 2GB DDR1-400. nVidia 9600GT 512MB. 450W OCZ modular PSU from about 4 years ago.

Thinking of:
Athlon II X3 435 w/ new motherboard (obviously). I'm on a really tight budget ($150 or so). I might be able to save $$ by using 2GB of DDR2-800 from a friend of mine (left over from his upgrade).

I'm guessing a CPU and AM2+/AM3 MoBo will yield the best results for general gaming purposes at this point, instead of upgrading the GPU? (Hence my post here, instead of the video forum).

Thanks for all opinions in advance!

 

[Hey Zeus]

Save some more and wait to get some DDR3

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

What are your reasons for wanting to upgrade?

 

[douglasb]

GPU will help gaming more than a CPU upgrade at this point. I think the 9600GT is holding you back more than your CPU is bottlenecking your system for gaming.

 

[alyarb]

i'd have to disagree with you guys. a gigabyte GA-MA78LM-S2H is only $60 and the Athlon X3 425 is only $80. With his friend's memory he can have a brand new unlocked quad core or tricore in the upper 3 GHz for under $150. This is the owners call, as it could be debated until the cows come home, but a 2 GHz processor is more unsuitable for gaming than a 9600 GT. A 9600 can probably play everything but crysis and clear sky at 1680x1050, but that K8 is just too slow.

Would you say the $150 would be better spent on a radeon 5770? That the 5770 is a good match for a 2 GHz K8? absolutely not. system first. GPU second. at least give him a fast system + dx10 IGP so that he can sell the 9600GT for $60. 9800 GTX are all over craigslist for under $100.

 

[Stefan Payne]

Well you can sell the old stuff.
I think the 939 dualcore Athlons are still pricy.
So you can almost buy a board with a CPU for that...

The CPU I would buy would be a 955 or maybe an Athlon II 630 (or something like that). I'd not buy something under a quad core.

As for the graphics card: It's not good but it's OK.

@alyarb
The CPU isn't that bad (OK, not that good either), the HD5770 should be much faster than the 9600GT is.
I couln't find a review that compared the 5770 to a 9600GT but a 9800GT and still the 5770 is much faster.

And for the CPU, you can't know if the 4th core works or not, so there is the possibility that he could have a quadcore but there is a risk the inactive core doesn't work and that risk is high, in my opinion.

 

[Ben90]

i'd have to disagree with you guys. a gigabyte GA-MA78LM-S2H is only $60 and the Athlon X3 425 is only $80. With his friend's memory he can have a brand new unlocked quad core or tricore in the upper 3 GHz for under $150. This is the owners call, as it could be debated until the cows come home, but a 2 GHz processor is more unsuitable for gaming than a 9600 GT. A 9600 can probably play everything but crysis and clear sky at 1680x1050, but that K8 is just too slow.

Would you say the $150 would be better spent on a radeon 5770? That the 5770 is a good match for a 2 GHz K8? absolutely not. system first. GPU second. at least give him a fast system + dx10 IGP so that he can sell the 9600GT for $60. 9800 GTX are all over craigslist for under $100.

It depends what games you play, but for the most part i disagree. A 9600gt is roughly a 7800gtx. Well my friend and i had two different systems:
mine: Athlon x2 @ 3.2ghz 7800gtx
friend: Athlon x2@ 2.4ghz 8800gt

My rig was struggling to play R6V2 on minimum @ 1280x1024, while my friends was running smoothly maxed @ 1920x1200

 

[Decembermouse]

i'd have to disagree with you guys. a gigabyte GA-MA78LM-S2H is only $60 and the Athlon X3 425 is only $80.

At this point in the game most of the multi-core CPU's from AMD that aren't quad-cores come natively with less cores. When they first came out they were just quad-cores with one or two cores that failed, but now they're selling native ones, not rejects.

 

[douglasb]

You should be able to buy an 8800GT or GTS for around $50 on the forums here, which would leave you $100 for a CPU/mobo. If you sell that 939 setup, which I recommend doing ASAP while prices are artificially high for that socket, so you will have even more cash to put towards an AM2+/AM3 setup. With that 8800GT/GTS, though, there really shouldn't be too many games you can't play, even with that CPU.

But for my suggestion, eBay the 939 setup and the video card, grab an 8800-series from the forums here, get a decent AM2+ motherboard so you can use your friends DDR2 and upgrade that later, and spend the rest on the best AM3 chip you can get. Should play everything you are trying to play just fine at high res, and that rig will last you a while in the future with minimal upgrades such as additional RAM when you feel the need.

 

[douglasb]

At this point in the game most of the multi-core CPU's from AMD that aren't quad-cores come natively with less cores. When they first came out they were just quad-cores with one or two cores that failed, but now they're selling native ones, not rejects.

x3's are all crippled quads, as AMD does not have a tri-core fab. The Regor Athlon II x2's are native duals, while the Deneb Phenom II x2's are crippled quads. I believe Kuma is also native dual-core, but I wouldn't even bother with that.

 

[Rogue 2]

Wow, thanks everyone!

I mostly play COD:WaW, L4D2, and MW2. MW2 is my main reason for upgrading, since my system actually works pretty well for L4D2 and COD5, but testing out a 1680x1050 monitor made the MW2 really slow down in big open scenes. Otherwise it's playable, especially if I turn the res down... but I need (want) higher res to actually see what the heck I'm firing at in the game! Right now I still play on my trusty 20" CRT at lower resolutions (like 1280x1024, etc.). Would definitely like to push it higher for when I replace it. It will go as high as 1600x1200 85Hz.

I've been out of the upgrade world for a while now so I feel like a n00b all over again.. so many thanks for all the input... keep it coming!

 

[toyota]

It depends what games you play, but for the most part i disagree. A 9600gt is roughly a 7800gtx. Well my friend and i had two different systems:
mine: Athlon x2 @ 3.2ghz 7800gtx
friend: Athlon x2@ 2.4ghz 8800gt

My rig was struggling to play R6V2 on minimum @ 1280x1024, while my friends was running smoothly maxed @ 1920x1200

a 9600gt is about twice as fast as a 7800gtx in newer games.

 

[toyota]

GPU will help gaming more than a CPU upgrade at this point. I think the 9600GT is holding you back more than your CPU is bottlenecking your system for gaming.

a 4200 X2 is okay with a 9600gt but sticking a really fast card in there would be silly as the X2 would become a large bottleneck. really in some newer games the 4200 X2 will barely even get the job done. again in many newer games his minimum framerate will barely budge with a faster card then what he already has.

 

[Hey Zeus]

It depends what games you play, but for the most part i disagree. A 9600gt is roughly a 7800gtx. Well my friend and i had two different systems:
mine: Athlon x2 @ 3.2ghz 7800gtx
friend: Athlon x2@ 2.4ghz 8800gt

My rig was struggling to play R6V2 on minimum @ 1280x1024, while my friends was running smoothly maxed @ 1920x1200

Eh.. Not really.

7800GTX - 569
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=GeForce+7800+GTX

9600gt - 937
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=GeForce+9600+GT

 

[Stefan Payne]

If it's better when you turn down the resolution, you need a new graphics card.
A new CPU would be neccassary if that wouldn't bring much.

@douglasb
the Kuma is a crippled Agena...

Eh.. Not really.

Well, yes.

If shader code is used massively, the old G7x Cards perform like crap.
As you can see here in crysis where a 8600GT outperforms a 7800GTX in Crysis...
Beware, it's in German!

 

[Ben90]

a 9600gt is about twice as fast as a 7800gtx in newer games.

Oh wow, im out of the loop I guess. Since the 8800gt->9800gt was basically a firmware update i figured the 8600->9600 was the same, but it appears the 9600 is quite a bit faster than the 8600 after going through some charts.

 

[toyota]

Oh wow, im out of the loop I guess. Since the 8800gt->9800gt was basically a firmware update i figured the 8600->9600 was the same, but it appears the 9600 is quite a bit faster than the 8600 after going through some charts.

yeah the 9600gt is basically twice as fast as the 8600gts because it doubled nearly everything about the 8600gts.

 

[Stefan Payne]

And a 256bit memory interface (whatever that is for)...

 

[Hey Zeus]

And a 256bit memory interface (whatever that is for)...

It's good. Thats all that matters The 5750 and 5770 would be so much more badass if they had it.

 

[alyarb]

i already said this could be debated until the cows come home, and they have. yet there is still debate.


you have to decide which bottleneck is better or worse for you. if you're 100% satisfied with the system except for one tiny thing where you would like to run one game at a higher res, you can get a new GPU.

it doesn't have to be a 5750 either. a 4850 or 9800 GT would clean it right up, which should only cost you $30-50 after you sell the 9600. if you want to play newer games above 1600x1200 you'll want to spend more, but if you're married to your CRT, then you are married to 1600x1200.

 

[edplayer]

do you have a Fry's near you?

That is where you will find the best deals on cpu/motherboards combos. For example, right now they have the Athlon II X4 620 with a MSI 785 based board for $110 AR. I bought an Intel E5200 with a MSI G31 based board for $50 AR about a month ago. Really, the only place to buy from if you are looking for the best deals (and have one near you).

The 9600GT should be OK. I use an eVGA SSC version (740/1850/2000) with a 1920x1080 monitor and it runs my games fine. Most will run at full resolution with max details but no AA (usually max AF) like COD:WaW with some easier games like L4D2 being able to use 4X AA (MSAA in that case) along with max AF. There will be a few that you would want to turn down a setting or two from max details and some (Crysis and maybe a few more) that you would not be able to run at full res. This is at 1920x1080 and I am using it with a Q9550 and 4GB of ram

 

[Schmide]

8800gt by 10-15% >= 9600gt ~= 8800gts 620mb >= 8800gts 320mb/8800gs/9600gso by -5%

http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/02/g80-vs-g92-hi-end-geforce-gfx-cards-round-up/321.html/8